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Side Income Report for May 2019: How I Earned $57,411.29 (on the Side) This Month

The month of May saw a very slight dip in side income, landing at $57,411.29. Traffic continued soaring past last month’s high bringing in 476,000 readers and just under 585,000 unique sessions in one month (!!!). My blogging business had another great month, and I’ve got a lot to be grateful for.

On the personal side of things last month, we had more time at home in San Francisco than we’ve had all year. It was nice enjoying the end of spring as Shelly & I began checking out wedding venues around the Bay Area!

Now, let’s dig into the numbers… last month saw a small decrease in side income over April, which still drastically exceeded my forecast thanks to solid affiliate commissions from my guide about how to start a blog and another standout month of sustained sales of my premium blogging course, Built to Blog: How to Get Your First 10,000 Readers and Earn Six-Figures Blogging.

Overall, I generated $57,411.29 in side income revenue during May of 2019.

I kept many of my freelance writers busy last month on top of starting a couple big development projects to continue improving my website layout & page load speeds. Net profit for the month came in at $47,726.99.

The Forecast 🌤: For June, I’m expecting side income to drop a bit more, landing around $50,000 – $55,000 with a little variance based on how a few upcoming experiments go. Expenses should remain steady or drop marginally for the month, as my content pipeline is still overflowing with long-form guides that need my editing and publishing.

Now, on to the details of my May side income report…

Side Income in May 2019: $57,411.39

In these monthly reports, I track my total side income every month, including each individual source of that income, and associated expenses with running my side businesses. This is the good and the bad.

Next, I break down the traffic to my blog which heavily impacts my side income, including what’s performing best and how I’m working to drive in more readers. I also cover how many email subscribers I’m at, the number of new subscribers acquired during the month, and what that growth trajectory looks like.

Then I talk about my podcast download numbers for the month, and which episodes performed best.

Finally, I cover updates on any other side projects I’m working on for the month.

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Now, let’s do this.

Side Income Breakdown for May 2019

Gross Income

$57,411.29

Course & Book Sales (Built to Blog)

    $7,225.47

$49,173.28

$44,120.00
$0.00
$0.00
$134.93
$136.76
$144.82
$2,839.87
$29.00
$304.89
$228.00
$76.92
$0.00
$18.50
$0.00
$0.00
$627.36
$0.00
$103.20
$54.49
$319.84
$34.70

Carbon Ads

$1,012.54

Podcast Sponsorships (Side Hustle Project)

$0.00

 

Expenses Breakdown

Total Expenses

$9,683.30

Web Services – Hosting and Storage

Kinsta
OptimizePress (Renewal)
MoneyTalk Registration/Hosting
Dreamhost
Google Drive
Amazon Web Services
TinyPNG Image Optimization
GoDaddy Auctions Account
Cloudflare

$767.35

$300.00
$0.00
$312.30
$95.86
$9.99
$0.00
$39.37
$4.99
$4.84

Online Tools & Subscriptions

ConvertKit (Pre-Paid Annual)
Teachable
Bluehost (Test Website)
Adobe Creative Cloud
Calendly
Quickbooks
Zoom.us (Video Conferencing)
Apple (Storage & Apps)
Video Transcriptions (YouTube)

$514.95

$268.01
$99.00
$0.00
$52.99
$10.00
$20.00
$14.99
$49.96
$0.00

Professional Services

Freelance Writers
Wordpress Developer
Infographic Designer
Virtual Assistant
Podcast Producer (for Feb and Mar)
Business Insurance

$3,234.32

$1,620.00
$0.00
$350.00
$215.99
$950.00
$98.83

Advertising

Quuu Promote (Pre-Paid Annual)
Pinterest Ads

$107.00

$0.00
$107.00

Travel, Office Supplies & Misc

iPhone X Payment Plan
AT&T Service Plan (iPhone)
Internet (Comcast)
USPS (Shipping)
Transaction Fees
Office Supplies
Flights
Client Meals
Uber and Lyft 🚖
Charitable Contributions

$5,060.68

$56.16
$159.04
$86.46
$32.36
$237.29
$486.81
$3,338.66
$449.77
$73.86
$140.00

 

Net Profit Breakdown

Net Profit

$47,726.99

 

Now, on to my blog, email and podcast-related statistics.

2. Blog Stats for May 2019: 584,958 Sessions and 106,352 Total Email Subscribers

GA May 2019 Traffic

For the fifth month in a row, I’ve hit a new all-time high in blog traffic, staying above the half a million monthly reader mark. 🎉

I was up in Sessions from April by more than 15%. On top of the sessions increase, I moved up to 736,679 pageviews.

All of my top articles saw increases in traffic during May—due largely to key organic rankings during the month, but in part due to continued performance upgrades on my site thanks to a couple of developers I’ve been working more with to reduce my page load times.

Overall, I’m up more than 161% in growth year over year compared to May 2018. That increase is directly correlated with several of my most trafficked posts continuing to rank higher in organic search—coupled with increased activity on Pinterest that’s resulted in more traffic.

Here are my top 15 trafficked posts from May, ranked in descending order of which drove the most readers:

May saw another steady flow of traffic to my 24,000+ word guide, 10 Steps to Start a Blog on the Side—which remained in the top few ranking positions in searches for competitive terms like how to start a bloghow to blog, and other related terms that get a lot of activity this time of year.

And the best part about that? As more readers land on this post, more are joining my free course, How to Build a Blog in 7 Days and are offered an opportunity to join my more advanced, comprehensive paid Built to Blog course that’ll help them level up their blogging journey even more.

Also in May, I published two insanely epic new guides for my growing audience of bloggers:

Both coming in at well over the 10,000 word mark, together these guides break down both how I come up with smart (research-based) topics to write about that I know my audience will love and exactly what my writing process looks like behind the scenes—including a free template you can download and put to work in your own writing process.

The game plan is to continue publishing a higher volume of in-depth content throughout 2019 to help diversify my passive income streams and keep bringing more new readers to the blog.

2. Email Subscribers.

CK May 2019 Subscribers

I use ConvertKit to manage my email subscriber community and deliver my emails.

May saw the addition of 7,942 subscribers to my community with my total list size growing to 106,352 subscribers 🎉

Despite a marked slow down in sign ups toward the end of the month due to some shifting around in organic traffic rankings (and a few optimizations on-site), I still saw a near record growth month in new email subscribers. Much of my new subscriber growth continues to be fueled by my new free course, Build a Blog in 7 Days which is well-optimized for both affiliate revenue—and for offering my more advanced paid course (Built to Blog).

3. Podcast Downloads for May 2019: 20,407 Downloads

Podcast Downloads May 2019

My podcast, The Side Hustle Project is remaining pretty steady with decent monthly growth.

And with 20,407 downloads, last month was a sizable gain above April’s figures.

Here are the episodes that went live last month:

May brought my total download numbers for the show to 278,180 downloads!

If you’re not a listener yet, give it a try right here 🙂

That’s it for my May side income report.

For June, I’m predicting side income to drop a bit—down to around $50,000 – $55,000 as I see a little taper in my affiliate commissions coming down the pipeline and extending further into the summer. A major focus of mine for the coming six months is to diversify my passive income streams (affiliates, course sales, book sales, and otherwise) and eventually hit my first six-figure month by March of 2020.

I’ll keep sharing everything I learn along the way!

If you’re looking for some additional reading to help grow your own blog (on the side), I recently launched a 24,000 word free guide to building and scaling a profitable blog right here that I’d love for you to read 😊

How I Made $57,411 Blogging on the Side of my day job Ryan Robinson ryrob May 2019 Income Report

Hi I'm Ryan Robinson

I'm a blogger, but I'm not my blog. I am not my business either. Occasional podcaster and very-much-recovering side project addict. Co-Founder at RightBlogger. Join me here, on ryrob.com to learn how to start a blog and build a purpose-connected business. Be sure to take my free blogging tools for a spin... especially my wildly popular free keyword research tool & AI article writer. They rule. Somehow, I also find time to write for publications like Fast Company, Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Next Web, Business Insider, and more. Let’s chat on Twitter (X?) and YouTube about our feelings (and business, of course).

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9 replies to “Side Income Report for May 2019: How I Earned $57,411.29 (on the Side) This Month”

  1. Looks like most of your side-hustle money comes from being a bluehost affiliate. Is that recurring based on people you refer and then they use it ongoing?

    Reply
    • Nope, the Bluehost affiliate program pays out once (upon signup of a person you refer) so it’s not a recurring plan. There are plenty of strong hosting companies that do offer recurring commission affiliate programs though. Kinsta is my favorite in that camp with a sizable upfront payout + 10% recurring commissions over time.

      Reply
      • Hello Mr Ryan,am usman live in nigeria well i joing this your company in weather to help myself in some other essure that i am facing know because am jobless.so i want to now how I am to be part of your program.

        Reply
  2. Looks like affiliate marketing is loving you from galaxy to galaxy in hitting you off with that lovely side hustle millionaire $ gUaP $. Love this new blogging income report Ryan. Keep it coming good brother. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Hey, Ryan,
    First of all I congratulate you on the blog.
    I’m studying to make a blog and I have some doubts about your income because I have seen that 78% of your income are from bluehost affiliates 13% of courses:
    1. Isn’t it too much dependence on a simple product? what do you think about it?
    2. Do you focus all your efforts on selling this product in every blog article?

    Thank you

    Reply